Abstract

This RFC suggests a proposed protocol for the Internet community and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This RFC is the outgrowth of a series of IAB Privacy Task Force meetings and of internal working papers distributed for those meetings. This RFC defines message encipherment and authentication procedures, as the initial phase of an effort to provide privacy enhancement services for electronic mail transfer in the Internet. It is intended that the procedures defined here be compatible with a wide range of key management approaches, including both conventional (symmetric) and public-key (asymmetric) approaches for encryption of data encrypting keys. Use of conventional cryptography for message text encryption and/or authentication is anticipated.